We sat in Sulwing Dessert Cafe on the top floor of Yongsan Shopping Mall. I ordered just a large mug of Americano but Haein opted for a massive portion of Bingsu, a popular dessert made of shaved ice, with all the extras on top.
OK, she does really like these things.
Not that it was anything new after seeing her go through an obscene amount of sweets last time, but I still made a mental note of what she ate. All of these little details could be useful in getting close to her or manipulating her in whatever ways that might arise as necessary in the future. She was the only thing I found in the past eight and a half years or so that brought the possibility to break the pattern of life that I got so accustomed to.
"How is the Bingsu?"
"It's great!"
"I'm glad you like it. So… are you ready to talk about the review?"
"Sure. What do you want to know?"
"What would you say is the worst part of it?"
"The opening sucks. It's such a trope and it brings nothing new to it. At the same time, it completely leaves out any form of world-building - not even implied"
"But reincarnation and time loop genre is popular"
"Yeah, there are tons of those books that are good and popular in this genre, but your book isn't one of them"
"I update daily though…"
"Daily update of crap just means that the crap keeps on piling up"
Brutal.
"What about the characters?"
"It looks like you wanted to make the female MC 'interesting' by making her some kind of an anti-heroine, but it just ends up being a totally uninteresting character. There's nothing special about her"
"Wouldn't that make her more relatable?"
"Well, two things - first, it's a fantasy genre. People want to see something 'different' from reality. Second, being able to relate to this character is like admitting that I'm also a useless waste of space. I, and many other readers, don't want that"
"Right"
"The setting is not bad but bad. OK, so you set it in the REAL city - Seoul. I guess that made it easier to write and the setting becomes automatically 'realistic'. But that's just lazy world-building. There is no effort from YOUR part to convey anything below surface level about this city"
"But you are from Busan… how would you know about whether I'm doing Seoul justice or not?"
"Oh my god, you are a freak! How did you know that I was from Busan?"
"Your accent"
"So creepy"
I think everyone in Seoul can tell except you, Haein.
"OK, let's move on - how about the language?"
"Simple and concise, but in a bad way. It lacks descriptions of anything that's happening. Even how the female MC looks is not described at all. We don't even know how tall she is, what she's wearing, and things like that. You also have zero description of the environment where actions are taking place. It's like everything's happening in a vacuum"
"I'm inviting the readers to fill in that vacuum"
"That just goes back to you being lazy as an author again"
As much as I wanted to protest, everything she said was true. I had no plans to continue writing a story that nobody would ever get to read because the world would end in 40 days anyway. If there was any future beyond that, I might have persevered and tried to improve myself, but there was no future for anyone - not for me as a writer, and certainly not for any readers.
I asked about my last self-perceived 'strength'.
"You know, it's supposed to be a fantasy rom-com and I think I'm decent at it. What do you think about that?"
"The jokes are so cringy I thought you'd be a 40-something years old man"
I suddenly felt like crying.
I used to cry a lot, especially in the early cycles of the time loop. Desperate yet hopeless. Restless yet bored. Self-sufficient and lonely. As much as I have been a reasonably happy loner, maybe there was still a part of me that craved human affection and acknowledgment. Maybe that remaining fraction of me wanted to be praised, appreciated, and respected.
But it wasn't to be.
The very girl that I was trying to save (and hence perhaps even save myself) was my biggest critic.
"If I were you, I would start over. Although I'm not completely sure whether it would make it worth it"
Girl, I had no time to start over, which was the most ironic thing.
Of course, I had all the time in the world to improve my writing. If I spend the next 10 years practicing my craft, maybe I can deliver peak novels. But then again, I would wake up on October 1st again and anything I had written would be gone. Well, technically, I could write a masterpiece after years of practice and then quickly post the first chapter of it before this girl leaves a bad review, but it would be extremely hard to do that in the limited time I'd have after I wake up again.
Hang on-, maybe I can just give up and edit the early non-premium chapters to be just blank? Surely she won't even read it then and that would mean no bad review, right?
Why am I so hung up on this review though… it's not even guaranteed that avoiding this one-star review will influence the course of events in any meaningful way.
"Have you thought about using AI?", the girl asked, after which she put another massive scoop of shaved ice into her mouth.
"Oh"
"Of course, you can't just copy-paste. Any proper readers would be able to tell you did that. But AI drivel would still be better than yours. Also, it would at least give you some alternative view on whether your story would work better if written differently"
That lit up the light bulb in my mind.
"I think you are right. Maybe that's what I will try!"
After all was said and done, I promptly headed to Han River and threw myself off the bridge. It was always tough being drowned, but the prospect of possibly making a breakthrough new chapter got me excited.
Thank you, AI. I'm looking forward to working with you.